As is known, nowadays, the need to track products and/or activities by means of accurate, reliable, and verified information about the products and/or the activities is more and more felt.
Generally, tracking a product and/or an activity comprises collecting information about all major events related to the product and/or to the activity to be tracked.
In particular, the information about all major events related to a product to be tracked may comprise geographical location and time data relating to production, processing, storage, transportation and delivery of the product, while the information about all major events related to an activity to be tracked may comprise geographical location and time data relating to different tasks carried out during the activity including the correct and consistent sequence of the tasks to be tracked. These data may be then used by third parties, enforcers, controllers, and consumers/customers as an objective and reliable evidence of compliance of the product and/or of the activity with laws, regulations, procedures, best practices, and quality standards.
Therefore, the number of systems and services, which provide tracking of products and/or activities with the aim of proving compliance with specific rules and regulations towards third parties and final consumers/customers, is more and more growing.
Examples of applications for which a reliable and guaranteed tracking is important are: waste transportation, dangerous goods transportation, valuable goods transportation, perishable goods transportation, guaranteed-quality food/product tracking, pharmaceutical product distribution, cold chain tracking, guaranteed-origin product protection and enforcement, critical bank transactions, and tracking of delivery of donations and humanitarian aids. For all these applications geographical location and time of all major events related to the product and/or to the activity are essential features in order to prove quality and compliance of the product and/or of the activity with rules and laws, hence a reliable tracking is often a mandatory requirement.
For example, in European Union and USA food traceability for whole value chain, i.e., from producer to consumer, is a priority for public safety, for enforcement of quality and brand labels, and for support to “shortest delivery chain” implementation for sustainable environment impacts.
In particular, the European Union is very active in the field of food quality, as demonstrated, for example, by the European Union Regulation n. 2081/92 adopted in 1992 and aimed to regulate and protect geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs. An example of successful story in this context is represented by the “Parmigiano Reggiano” which is one of the most well-known and developed Protected-Designation-of-Origin (PDO) food product in the world. Parmigiano Reggiano case has demonstrated the value of the PDO concept and the sustainability of the business model where the investment has been largely justified by the revenues increase.
In detail, as appears after several years from the introduction of the PDO concept, despite the evident advantages for the whole food value chain, the PDO concept has demonstrated a limitation in enforcement and control tasks since these tasks are in charge to the same organization that has registered, on voluntary basis, the PDO brand to be protected. Indeed this model has an intrinsic potential conflict of interest while performing controls and enforcement.
Another example of application for which a reliable and guaranteed tracking is important is represented by the “donation traceability” related to big national and international initiatives aimed to provide quick relief and support to regions damaged by natural disasters (e.g. tsunami, earthquakes, floods) or major humanitarian emergencies (e.g. civil wars, terrorist attacks). These initiatives are frequently implemented with many small money donations, usually made using mobile phones sending SMSs, ie., messages sent by means of the Short Message Service, allowing the collection and the delivery of important amount of money to local administrations or emergency forces involved in the area of interest. The reliable and guaranteed tracking of those small money transactions could be tracked in term of “events” associated to geographical location and time with the aim to provide evidence of real and actual delivery of each, even small, money contribution.
As previously said, tracking a product and/or an activity comprises collecting information about all the major events, comprising respective geographical location and time data, related to the product and/or the activity.
Then, this information is often stored on tracking means, such as, in the case of a tracked product, a label which is coupled with the tracked product, in order to provide, with this information, who is interested in it, such as a seller, a freight operator, a controller, or a final customer.
In the past the tracking means were always printed paper labels, while during the last years more and more smart labels have been exploited.
In fact, a lot of smart labels, such as those based on barcodes or on Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology, are already used to store digital data on small size media, such as plastic or paper labels, to be attached to products in order to provide different users, such as sellers, freight operators, controllers, final customers, with information and data about the products. Generally, the smart labels are readable by means of specific devices.
Moreover, smart label technology is continuously evolving with big investments and research efforts all over the world, and the trend is in the direction of smaller and higher-capacity electronic labels with anti-theft and anti-fraud characteristics.
An example of anti-fraud electronic label is represented by smart electronic labels inserted in corks of high quality wine bottles in order to avoid falsifications and frauds.
Furthermore, since, as previously said, the information about all major events related to a product and/or an activity to be tracked may comprise geographical location and time data, a lot of tracking systems have been developed based on satellite localization also because of its low cost and worldwide availability.
Generally, known satellite-localization-based product tracking systems exploit satellite localization systems, such as Global Positioning System (GPS), to compute positions of a product to be tracked, for example, when it is produced, processed, stored, transported, and delivered. Then each computed position and a corresponding time, i.e., that date and that time when the position is assumed by the product, are stored on the tracking means which are coupled with the product.
Moreover, known satellite-localization-based activity tracking systems exploit satellite localization systems, such as GPS, to compute respective locations where different tasks of the activity to be tracked are carried out. Then each computed location and a corresponding time, i.e., that date and that time when the corresponding task is carried out, are made available to who can be interested to them.
In this respect, for some tracking applications, for example for bank transactions and donation traceability, the storage of the tracking data on a physical support is not always needed while is important, for various reasons, to produce and to provide different users with the tracking data in electronic form, for example making them available on an on-line database which may be public or have a controlled and restricted access.
Nevertheless, the known satellite-localization-based tracking systems may be vulnerable and, thence, can be questioned when traceability relevance is high and when collected information reliability may be affected by voluntary or involuntary corruptions or even falsifications for fraudulent purposes.
In fact, for example, a wine producer could voluntary change the geographical location stored on labels coupled with wine bottles produced by him in order to simulate a production geographical location (or time/date) different from the real one, making fraudulently result a high quality zone related to a valuable Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) or PDO.
Another example could concern a company in charge of dangerous goods transportation ruled by national law and according to a contract with a public administration. If rule abidance control is based on GPS-based tracking, effectiveness of this control is questionable due to possibility to record false positions to demonstrate compliance with rules/laws.
Indeed, for example, it's possible to record and, then, to store false positions on the tracking means either by copying genuine location data from genuine labels and pasting them on the tracking means, or using satellite localization signal spoofing attacks based on false satellite localization signals generated just to compute specific false positions which are more valuable than the real ones, or which are admitted while the real ones are not.
In general, current satellite-localization-based tracking systems are adopted, configured and operated by the same company and user that is subject of control with a clear conflict of interests. This anomaly does not allow a third party, such as a controller, to have full confidence on the traceability outputs. The controller is de facto obliged to rely on the honesty of the company, on the generally recognized “universal service” nature of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals available worldwide and on the technical difficulties in manipulating the GNSS data and GNSS receivers.
Therefore, weakness of satellite-localization-based tracking systems in term of reliability and credibility against third parties, and vulnerability against frauds, is evident. Accordingly it's necessary to guarantee positioning towards third parties, such as controllers, sellers, consumers, and to have an objective evidence of truthfulness of the stored location data.
Thence, most recently developed satellite-localization-based tracking systems try to generate and provide specific data which are intended to guarantee truthfulness of the stored location data, and to augment their reliability against voluntary or involuntary corruptions, and falsifications.
An example of this type of tracking systems is disclosed in the International Patent Application having WO2007049344 as publication number.
In detail, WO2007049344 discloses a food product tracing system which traces a food product collecting positions and times corresponding to production, shipment, transportation, etc., of the food product.
In particular, in WO2007049344 positions are computed based on the GPS. For example, according to WO2007049344, a producer of a food product exploits a GPS receiver to obtain a location of production of the food product, this location being used to trace the food product.
Furthermore, the food product tracing system disclosed in WO2007049344 comprises a verification server apparatus which receives from a user, such as a producer of a food product, a position and a time, such as a production location and a shipment time of the food product, and generates verification information by synthesizing the position, the time, and unique data obtained only at either one of the position and the time.
In particular, the verification information is information verifying a position and a time of the food product, for example verifying the production location and the shipment time of the food product.
Exploiting unique data obtained only at either one of the position and the time in order to generate the verification information improves probative value of the verification information. Therefore, according to WO2007049344, the verification information should guarantee a position and a time towards third parties, such as controllers, sellers, consumers, and should represent an objective evidence of truthfulness of the position and of the time.
However, WO2007049344 teaches to exploit only two types of unique data, i.e.,                weather data which the verification server apparatus acquires from a weather satellite, and which are unique data obtained only at a predetermined time, such as shipment date and time of the food product, and        natural phenomenon information, such as temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, altitude, and wind velocity, which are unique data obtained only at a predetermined position, such as a production location of the food product.        
In particular, WO2007049344 teaches                in one embodiment, to exploit only the weather data to synthesize the verification information, thus the verification information guaranteeing the truthfulness only of the time and not also of the position; and        in another embodiment, to exploit the natural phenomenon information in addition to the weather data to synthesize the verification information, thus the verification information guaranteeing the truthfulness of the position and of the time.        
Furthermore, WO2007049344 lacks in teaching how to obtain the natural phenomenon information.